


You're an idiot, Michael Clifford

by CalumSmiles (dreamforlife)



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: M/M, MUKEEEEEE, This is just something that came to me really, i love it though, it's adorable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-26
Updated: 2014-10-26
Packaged: 2018-02-22 17:10:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2515403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamforlife/pseuds/CalumSmiles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>See, the thing is, Michael kind of likes Luke. </p><p>No. </p><p>The thing is, Michael is very much stupidly in love with Luke and it's a PROBLEM.</p><p>~~~~</p><p>Or, the one in which Michael loves Luke and Luke loves Michael and Calum is one sneaky bastard. Ashton's around too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You're an idiot, Michael Clifford

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lightupthedark16](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightupthedark16/gifts).



> This is my first venture into the world of 5SOS fics :) 
> 
> Hope you guys like it! 
> 
> Enjoy ;)

“Give it back,” Michael makes grabby hands at the remote that Ashton steals off his stomach, whining. His hair flops in a miserable mess of red over his forehead as he struggles. “It’s mine.”

Michael actually doesn’t care. The movie is stupid and boring, really. But he complains for the sake of complaining because it’s something like eleven in the morning and they’re in the middle of yet another ridiculously big American state in the middle of fucking _nowhere_ and he’s tired. Besides, Calum and Luke are out doing some ridiculous shit like fucking football in the fucking desert that it is outside with Louis and Niall and he’s only got Ashton to complain to.

Ashton pays him no mind however, a well-seasoned veteran of pouting younger siblings and big-ass puppy eyes, and continues flicking through the channels, far away from the ridiculous movie about talking cats, until he settles on some random American soap, plopping down onto the bed next to Michael and shoving himself into Michael’s side.

Michael hates him.

“I hate you,” he mutters to the drummer.

“Shut up and cuddle me,” Ashton says, and his tone is light, teasing, and irritatingly knowing. His arms wrap around Michael’s middle, head resting on Michael’s shoulder. “You know you love this.”

Michael does, is the thing. He tries to maintain his punk rock image, he really does, but everyone knows how much of a softie he really is, and really, playing with kittens on a live telecast doesn’t really help anything at all. It _sucks. (_ He still loves kittens though.)

They end up sprawled on the couch, tangled from arms to feet, watching the terrible show for the next forty minutes.

Michael hates this band.

 

*

 

It’s only when Luke and Calum make a huge racket coming into his and Ashton’s room that Michael startles awake.

He grumbles, pressing his nose into Ashton’s neck, and attempts to go back to sleep.

“Get up, you lazy arses,” Calum pokes Michael’s foot with sweaty fingers, “It’s fucking one in the afternoon, grandpa, there are better things to do than sleep.”

“Fuck off, Calum,” Ashton mumbles into Michael’s forearm, burrowing back into the curve of his body. “M’fucking tired, arsehole, lemme sleep.”

Michael hides a smile in back of Ashton’s neck, because right now, he’s his favourite out of the band.

Not even Luke could take away that title.

(Then again, his favourite varies between whoever will let him sleep the most when they have off days. But it’s mostly Luke, he can’t even lie to himself at this stage. It’s all a bit pathetic and the least punk rock Michael’s ever felt in his entire nineteen years of existence.

These… _feelings_ that he has for his best friend are something ridiculous that makes him feel all sorts of weird shit and he’s honestly feeling so stupid about this whole thing. He’d caught himself comparing Luke’s eyes to the warm, rich blue of the sky at home in summer, to the deep blue of the pool in their LA home, and he’d stubbed his toe on the kitchen counter on purpose because he’s so done with this. Bloody fucking—fuck everything, basically.)

“C’mon, please?” This time it’s Luke who pleads at them, and there’s a tug on Michael’s foot. “Please?”

Michael makes the mistake of looking at him. He’s an idiot.

Luke’s pouting, lip jutted out, blue eyes big and round, face washed with the bright light from outside, and Michael feels his heart melt a little.

Dammit. He clenches his eyes tight and buries his face back into Ashton’s neck. Dammit. Why is he literally the only child. Why doesn’t he have some kind of immunity to that ridiculous puppy face?

But he catches Luke’s smirk before he closes his eyes and he knows that Luke knows that he’s got him. See, that’s the thing. The boys know that they can get him with their puppy faces and they abuse it frequently and gleefully. It fucking sucks.

“Fine,” he mutters loud enough for the other two to hear, “Fucking fine. But I’m not going outside.”

“Well played, Hemmo,” Calum says, cheering, and then drags Ashton off the bed, laughing as the older boy swears to the high heavens about dying Calum’s hair the colour of Elmo.

Luke just grins, satisfied. Michael wants to punch him in the mouth with his mouth. But obviously that’s nothing new.

Michael shuffles onto his back, rolling his eyes at the two now sprawled on the floor, Ashton straddling Calum and laughing as the tanned boy actually _squeals_ with laughter under his nimble fingers.

“What’re we doing, Mr There-are-better-things-to-do-than-sleep?” Michael asks, raising an eyebrow, “Because like I said, I’m not going outside in that heat.”

Calum wheezes from the floor, weakly batting at Ashton’s hands, “Couple of hot girls—”

“No.”

Luke looks up at the harsh hiss of breath that leaves Michael’s throat, hands pausing in the middle of fixing the cap backwards on his head before they drop to his sides. His teeth tug at the black lip ring that glints at the corner of his mouth.

Michael coughs, ducking his head as his cheeks burn red enough to rival his hair, and twists his fingers into the bed covers. He doesn’t need to look up to know that Ashton and Calum are staring at him too, eyes wide, shocked, because this is Michael. Michael doesn’t say no to hot girls.

Except.

Except he doesn’t think he can stomach seeing Luke flirting with girls right now. Not when he hasn’t slept properly in over two weeks. Not when, the last time they went to a club, Luke had been surrounded by girls the whole damn fucking night and Michael had been stuck in a dingy booth for the better part of three hours sulking into a cold beer that he hadn’t even ended up drinking anyway.

And it’s that much harder when you haven’t told your three best mates that you’d occasionally like to make out a guy with a hot face and a damn good body when you go to a club. (That guy specifically being Lucas Robert Hemmings, but no one asked and Michael isn’t telling anyone that piece of information anytime soon.)

“Michael, you okay?”

He flops back onto the bed, face first, and mutters something that gets muffled into the creases of the pillow.

“What?”

“I’m fine,” he says, lifting his head up a fraction, “I’m just really tired.”

There’s a stunned silence for a few seconds.

Then, “You haven’t been sleeping, have you.”

Michael rolls around to face Calum, meeting the accusing brown eyes that narrow when they meet his gaze. He feels a little guilty for not telling Calum about the whole possibly-gay-and-wanting-to-kiss-Luke thing he’s got going on.

Calum raises a sharp eyebrow at him.

Yeah. He feels _really fucking guilty_ for not telling Calum.

But right now he just stares right at Calum until he realises that he hasn’t answered the question.

“What, uh,” he mutters, “No. Not really.”

“Mikey, you idiot,” Ashton stands up and brushes himself down, frowning, “Why the hell didn’t you tell us?”

He shrugs, “Not that important.”

“Bullshit,” Calum scowls, toeing off his shoes, “Scoot over, Clifford.”

Michael manages to swallow down the fond smile that aches in his cheeks and gives him a quelling look. “Thought you said there were better things to do than sleep.”

Calum snorts, reaching out and yanking Michael into his side, and throws the covers over the two of them, “Fuck that. You and I are sleeping.”

Luke’s laughing, the sound bright and resonating in Michael’s head, as he watches the blonde lean into Ashton.

“Malum,” Luke yodels, grinning. He’s an idiot and Michael loves him anyway

“Alright, we’ll let you know have some alone time, shall we?” Ashton teases, draping his arm over Luke’s shoulders.

Calum sticks up his middle finger at them both and tucks himself into Michael, who just grins and salutes the other two.

“Later, boys.”

Ashton rolls his eyes but Michael can see the fondness and concern in the way his eyes roam over Michael for a second, eyebrows furrowing, before he curls his fingers around Luke’s wrist and tugs him towards the door.

“Sleep well, boys,” He calls as he opens the door, “Luke and I will entertain ourselves.”

Calum snorts a laugh from somewhere near Michael’s ear. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Michael laughs out loud at that, catching Luke’s eyes as the younger boy heads backwards to the door, grinning.

“Which basically rules out nothing, then,” Luke says and then closes the door behind him.

“Arsehole,” Calum mutters.

“Can’t argue with the truth, Cal,” Michael snuffles into the pillow, eyes sliding shut as sleep pulls at him, opening its arm and welcoming him into the dark void of silence.

“Fuck off, Mikey.”

“Love you too.”

 

*

 

Incidentally, it’s Ashton who finds out first.

It’s not really Michael’s fault, to be completely honest. He wasn’t even doing anything.

Or maybe that was the problem.

They were in the middle of a banding session in the dressing room in Miami, only the three of them because Calum had fucked off to god knows where with Louis and Zayn, probably to get another tattoo, and Michael’s been zoning out.

Ashton’s in the middle of going over some opening beat with Luke and Michael’s eyes are drawn to the way Luke’s tongue peeks out in soft pink-red flashes as his teeth bite into the lip ring, dimple melting into his cheek in sharp relief.

Michael wants to feel the cool metal of that ring against his own mouth and trace that dimple with his nose and push Luke against that wall over there and kiss him until all he can feel and see and hear is Luke.

It’s _infuriating,_ is the thing. Michael honestly has never felt more inclined to kiss someone just to stop them from being so fucking distracting.

His teeth sting as they bite into his lip, and his eyes follow Luke’s tongue as it drags across the soft swell of his bottom lip and his throat is suddenly dry.

“Michael!”

He startles, almost dropping his guitar on the floor, eyes darting to Luke’s concerned expression, and he makes an apologetic face.

“Sorry, what?” Michael fiddles with his hair, pushing the fringe to the side.

“I said, do you think that’ll work?” Luke says with a shake of his head, grinning. “You’re so out of it, man.”

“What’s working?” Michael asks, blinking slowly, forcing down the blush he can feel in his face.

“Never mind,” Luke says with a snort, “Ash, I’m gonna find Cal, he said something about stealing Smarties from catering.”

“Oh of course, Luke,” Ashton says in an exaggeratedly enthusiastic voice, “By all means, ditch us for some multi-coloured pebbles.”

Luke rolls his eyes, stretching his ridiculously long legs, and stretching, “You like them too.”

Michael doesn’t hear much of the resulting conversation as Luke’s shirt rides up and it becomes abundantly clear that becoming a legal adult has been very, _very_ considerate towards Luke and given him a fucking _happy trail_ that disappears into the waistband of his skinny jeans.

He realises just how fucked he is (or not fucked) as Luke strolls out the door.

His fingers tear into his hair, a groan spilling out of his mouth.

“So,” Ashton says casually.

Michael looks up at him, expression blank because what the fuck is his fucking life.

Ashton puts his drumsticks on the practice drum kit and stands up, picking his way across the messy floor before coming to a stop in front of Michael and folds his arms across his chest, biceps bulging. (If Michael hadn’t known the scrawny eighteen year old that Ashton used to be, he’d be slightly more wary of those things that Ashton called arms.)

“When were you planning on telling us you were gay?”

Michael chokes on his own spit.

He takes a moment to stop hacking out his lungs, wipe away the tears blurring his eyes, and look at Ashton weakly.

“What?”

The drummer just raises his eyebrows expectantly.

Michael sighs, putting his guitar down onto its stand in the corner, and figures that it’s probably a good thing that at least someone knows.

Maybe then he wouldn’t have to be up at arse o’ clock in the morning by himself, wallowing in the dark, outside alone in the coolness of the night. Maybe he won’t be tired all the time.

“Fine.” He says, and turns to Ashton again. “But bear in mind that this?” He gestures to himself. “This doesn’t leave this room.”

Ashton rolls his eyes, but Michael sees the curiosity and interest that’s hidden in the layers of  dark hazel.

“I’m gay. Possibly.” He says and then scratches the back of his neck. “I’m possibly more than a bit gay. Mostly. Like, mostly for Luke. Shit, uh, yeah. That’s…pretty much it.”

Ashton stares at him, eyes wide, for a few long and painful moments that have Michael sweating and nervously tangling his fingers together.

Then there’s a sound that’s so high-pitched and foreign to him that he stares in disbelief at Ashton.

Ashton who’s now chortling into his hand, his laughter echoing off the concrete walls of the dressing room, and Michael swears that there are tears pooling at the corners of his eyes, catching the light as Ashton presses a hand to his chest and keeps laughing.

“Why’s it funny?” Michael whines, scowling, “It’s not fucking funny, Ashton!”

Ashton just laughs harder, weakly waving a hand at him.

“I’m sorry,” he chokes out, wiping his eyes, “I’m sorry, I just—”

“What?” Michael grumbles, crossing his arms, “I fucking tell you that I’m gay as fuck for Luke and you _laugh_ at me? Fucking terrible best friend. I hate you.”

Ashton sputters out another laugh and goes to reply before a voice cuts in.

“You’re gay for _Luke?”_

Michael swears, turning a very attractive shade of red as he turns around to look at Calum in the doorway.

“Um…”

The dark haired boy walks further into the room, brown eyes huge and utterly disbelieving, his steps slow and uncertain.

“You’re gay. For Luke.” Calum repeats, coming to stop in front of him.

Michael wishes that he was anywhere else but here right now, wishes that the ground would open up and swallow him into the depths of the hell he knows he’s gonna end up in, to save him from having to face this.

It’s only when Calum’s mouth twitches that Michael throws his hands up.

“Oh _fuck_ you guys!” He says, glaring at the two silently laughing idiots that he calls his best friends. “I could have depression! I could be seriously having issues for having been in love with Luke for the past fucking _year_ and you two are _laughing._ I fucking hate this band.”

Calum clears his throat, opening knowing brown eyes at him as Ashton stumbles over to lean his weight onto Calum, still giggling.

“Michael, do you or do you not remember you telling me how much you _fucking hate Luke Hemmings because he’s such a pretentious arsehole and he should rot in the burning pitfires of hell for even daring to breathe the same as us?”_

Michael flushes, biting his lip. “Fuck you that was like… _a century_ ago. Have you fucking seen Luke lately?”

Ashton snorts. “If you’re going to blather on about his lip ring and blue eyes and toned arms, I’m getting a ticket out of the country and to Mongolia. Or better yet, I’ll send your phone number to the Luke girls out there and you guys can have a heart to heart.”

“I fucking hate you.”

Calum grins and wraps an arm around Ashton’s waist. “Don’t lie. You fucking love us. But, obviously it seems you love Luke more. Should’ve known Muke would end up being real.”

Michael hates this band. He _really hates this band._

“So how long have you been in love with Luke?” Ashton asks, and Michael glares, goes to say something sharp and witty, but it dies in his throat.

“You’re in love with _me?”_

It’s like the entire universe has something out for Michael. He’s hidden it from everyone for practically a year and now, in the span of one fucking day, everyone’s found out his big gay secret.

Hilarious, he thinks, thanks a fucking bunch.

He stares up at the doorway, a numb, icy feeling crawling like glaciers through his veins. Something pools in burning cold shavings at the pit of his stomach, and it feels a lot like dread.

Calum nudges Ashton’s shoulder, “Let’s leave them to talk, shall we?”

Ashton rolls his eyes, “Let’s. They’re both idiots.”

Calum winks at Michael and tugs Ashton out the door, past a shell-shocked Luke, who’s standing there in that stupid cute way he does, with his feet all pointed inwards.

The door shuts and the silence rings so loud that Michael wonders if he’s going mad.

“Look, I’m sorry—”

“Why didn’t you—”

They both stop, Michael feeling yet _another_ blush working its way into his cheeks.

Luke tugs on the lip ring out of nervous habit.

Michael wants to lick him.

This is a problem.

“You go,” Michael says finally after listening to his heart thud against his ribs for a few long moments.

Luke snorts and tosses the guitar pick he’d been twisting in his fingers onto the nearby couch, and then looks up at Michael, his blue eyes just this side of sapphire and glittering with something akin to amusement and fondness.

“What?” Michael asks, and he’s not pouting, thank you very much, this isn’t a pout. He’s just curious.

The blonde takes a few calculated steps towards Michael and the grand total of space between them can’t be more than a couple of metres.

Michael feels slightly lightheaded. Fuck. He is _not_ a teenage girl.

“You’re such an idiot,” Luke says, and wait what?

“Excuse me?” Michael says, affronted.

Luke rolls his eyes, taking a couple more steps forward. “Michael, you dumb-arse, I’ve had feelings for you since I was fifteen and hated you for it because you hated me.”

Michael’s jaw drops open and he gawps at Luke for a solid few seconds, blinking rapidly.

“What?” He finally rasps.

“Do you really need me to repeat that?” Luke sighs, and suddenly he’s a lot closer than Michael realised he was, two steps from reaching out and touching him.

“I, um,” Michael splutters, “No? Yes, I mean, wait, what—”

Luke cuts him off in the most clichéd way possible.

By kissing him.

Michael flounders, hands flailing in the air as Luke’s hands cup his jaw and his mouth presses in firmly, before his hands finally settle gingerly on Luke’s hips.

Luke presses in harder and his hands move to tighten around Michael’s waist the moment he feels Michael relax, and it’s hot and wet and really fucking good.

Michael tries to supress the grin that pulls at his mouth but fails utterly spectacularly, and just twists his fingers into Luke’s hair and kisses him harder.

Luke groans, and yeah, Michael likes kissing Luke. Really fucking likes kissing Luke.

The lip ring is cold against his mouth and Michael licks right over it, tugging on it with his teeth like he’s been wanting to do since Luke got the stupid thing.

Suffice it to say, Luke apparently really likes that.

Michael smirks.

“Sorted out your shit, have you?”

They pull apart at the sound of Calum’s amused voice, lips red, hair mussed, clothes wrinkled, and grin stupidly at each other for a few seconds.

“Oh bloody hell,” Calum mutters, “They made out for all of ten minutes and now they’re even more sickeningly in love.”

That snaps Michael out of his kiss-induced haze.

“Wait a fucking minute,” he mutters, turning around to an innocent-looking Calum, “You fucking _knew_ the whole fucking time. You fucking knew I liked Luke and that Luke liked me and you never said shit?”

Calum just shrugs and makes a break for it out the door.

“Luke, I love you, I do, and I’d love to continue this very soon,” Michael says, and presses a chaste kiss to Luke’s grinning mouth, and then glares out the door, “But right now I have an annoying New Zealander to kill.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope that wasn't TOO terrible :D
> 
> My tumblr is aneverendingreplay ^_^ Come say hi!


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